DIVINATION
[Sidenote: _Love Divination_]
The most prevalent of all the superstitious practices and charms
for divining future events are the ceremonies connected with
love-divination. Many of them are still in use, secretly practised
by the country maiden who is pining for a sweetheart, or having one,
doubts if he will prove constant; or if she is so fortunate as to
possess several admirers, she wonders which to select, and seeks this
aid to help her in her choice. Fortune-telling by means of plants
is mostly done by children, and is indeed little more than a game.
The plant most commonly employed for this purpose is the rye-grass,
called _aye-no-bent_ (Glo.), _what’s your sweetheart_ (Sus.), and
_tinker-tailor grass_ (Som. Dev.). The alternate seeds are picked off
one by one from the bottom upwards, to the words: Tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor, Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, each seed
representing the occupation named at the moment it is plucked. The
list is repeated over and over again till there is only one seed left
standing at the top, and this is the calling of the future husband of
the girl who is trying to read her fate. The same game is also played
with the leaves of the _pick-folly_ (Nhp.), the lady’s smock, and with
the fruit-stones left on a plate after eating a helping of pie. The
date of future marriage is foretold by plucking off the petals of a
field daisy one by one to the words: This year, next year, sometime,
never. In Shropshire, children playing with a cowslip-ball toss it up
and say: Tissy-ball, tissy-ball, tell me true, How many years have I
to go through? Then, if they catch it as it comes down they count it
for a year, and so, on and on, as the ball is tossed up and caught
again. A love-divination game played by school-children in Berkshire
villages has been described to me thus: write out your own name in
full, and below it the name of your chosen sweetheart. Then cross out
every letter of the alphabet common to both names, and count over
the remaining letters by repeating: Friendship, courtship, marriage,
through each name taken separately, and the result will show the future
relationship between the two. Just lately, a young woman I know well
was feeling thoroughly depressed about her lover, for in spite of his
long-standing devotion, he yet seemed in no hurry to ‘get settled’;
when a friend of hers suggested putting the matter to the test of
this charm, which they used to work on their slates in school, and
exhibit over their shoulders to little boys behind, when the teacher
was not looking that way. Both names ran out with ‘marriage’, and
sure enough, within a very short time the young man announced that he
was looking out for a cottage with a view to the wedding this autumn!
The common yarrow foretells constancy in courtship. Take one of the
serrated leaves of the plant, and with it tickle the inside of the
nostrils, repeating at the same time the following lines: Yarroway,
yarroway, bear a white blow, If my love love me my nose will bleed
now (e.An.). If blood follows this charm success in love is certain.
Similarly apple-pips may be consulted on this point. The name of the
possible lover must be whispered, or thought of in silence, and then
the pip placed in the fire, or on the hot bars of the grate, and these
lines repeated: If you love me, pop and fly, If you hate me, burn and
die. This is also done with nuts, and with peas. In some parts of the
country the ceremony is only efficacious if performed on St. Mark’s
Eve, April 24, or Hallowe’en, Oct. 31. Apple-pips are also used as a
charm to tell in what direction the future wife or husband lies. The
pips are pressed between the finger and thumb until they fly, the
following verse being repeated meanwhile: Pippin, pippin, paradise,
Tell me where my love lies; East, west, north, south, Kirby, Kendal,
Cockermouth (Lan.). The potency of the _even-ash_, i.e. an ash-leaf
with an even number of leaflets, shows itself thus; the young girl who
finds one repeats the words: This even-ash I hold in my han’, The
first I meet is my true man. She then asks the first male person she
meets on the road what his Christian name is, and this will be the
name of her future husband (Irel. Dev.). It is considered as lucky to
find an even-ash as to find a four-leaved clover, for: Even-ash and
four-leaved clover, See your true love ere the day’s over (Nhb. Shr.
Dev. Cor.). If you find nine peas in a pod, and place the pod over the
door, the first person who comes in will bear the Christian name of
your future partner in life (Shr. Ken.), cp.:
As peascods once I pluck’d, I chanced to see
One that was closely fill’d with three times three,
Which when I cropp’d I safely home convey’d,
And o’er my door the spell in secret laid.
My wheel I turn’d, and sung a ballad new,
While from the spindle I the fleeces drew;
The latch moved up, when who should first come in,
But in his proper person, ---- Lubberkin.
Gay, _The Shepherd’s Week: Thursday, or The Spell_.
[Sidenote: _How to discover a Lover_]
Other ways of discovering the name of the lover are: Cut through the
stem of a bracken fern, and the veins will show the initial letter
(Nrf.); examine the veins on the back of your left hand, and note the
letter they form; on May morning, take a small white slug termed a
_drutheen_ (Irel.), place it on a slate covered with flour or fine dust,
and the track it pursues in the dust will form the initial letter of the
name of the prospective husband; place a key at random in a Bible, and
note the letter to which it points (Oxf.); take an apple, pare it whole,
and holding the paring in your right hand, stand in the middle of the
room repeating the following lines:
St. Simon and Jude, on you I intrude,
By this paring I hold to discover,
Without any delay to tell me this day,
The first letter of my own true lover.
[Sidenote: _A future Husband’s Occupation revealed_]
Then turn round three times, and cast the paring over your left
shoulder, and it will form the first letter of the future husband’s
surname. A form of this divination trick was to my knowledge practised
by some of the kindergarten children at the Oxford High School in 1910.
A method whereby Berkshire damsels of to-day seek to discover the
name of a future husband is this: Split open an unused envelope, and
write three names of young men you know, or would like to know, one in
each of three corners, leaving one corner a blank. Place a piece of
wedding-cake in the middle of the envelope, and fasten it up firmly,
and then lay it under your pillow for three successive nights. Each
morning tear off a corner, and the name left on the fourth morning will
be the name of the destined husband, or if it is the blank corner which
remains, then you will die an old maid. The future husband’s occupation
may be revealed on New Year’s Eve by pouring some melted lead into
a glass of water, and observing what form the drops assume. If they
resemble scissors, they point to a tailor; if they depict a hammer,
then they foretell a carpenter, and so on (Lan.). Another similar
custom, belonging to Midsummer Day, is recorded as known in Cornwall:
Get a glass of water, throw into it the white of a freshly-broken egg,
and then put the glass to stand in the sunshine. You will soon see by
careful observation, the ropes and yards of a vessel if your husband is
to be a sailor, or a plough and team if he is to be a farmer. If when
you first hear the cuckoo you take off your left shoe and stocking,
you will find inside the latter a hair of the same colour as that of
the person you will marry (Shr.), cp. ‘Then doff’d my shoe, and by
my troth, I swear, Therein I spy’d this yellow frizled hair,’ Gay,
_Thursday, or The Spell_. Charms for procuring a vision of the beloved
are: on St. Thomas’ Eve, Dec. 20, peel a large red onion, stick nine
pins into it and say: Good St. Thomas, do me right, Send me my true
love this night, In his clothes and his array, Which he weareth every
day, and then place the onion under your pillow; on All Saints’ Eve
go into the garden alone at midnight, and while the clock is striking
twelve pluck nine sage-leaves, one at every stroke up to the ninth,
when you will see the face of the future husband, or if not, you will
see a coffin (Shr.); gather twelve sage-leaves at noon, keep them in
a saucer till midnight, then drop them one by one from your chamber
window into the street, simultaneously with each stroke of the hour,
the future husband will then either be seen, or else his step will be
heard in the street below (Yks.); on Midsummer Eve walk through the
garden with a rake over your left shoulder, and throw hempseed over
your right, repeating the while: Hempseed I set, hempseed I sow, The
man that is my true love Come after me and mow. The future husband
will then appear following with a scythe. This charm with variations
in the words used, and performed at different seasons, is widespread
throughout the country, cp.:
[Sidenote: _A Midsummer-Eve Charm_]
At eve last midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought,
I scatter’d round the seed on ev’ry side,
And three times in a trembling accent cried,
_This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true-love be, the crop shall mow._
I straight look’d back, and if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.
Gay, _The Shepherd’s Week: Thursday, or The Spell_.
[Sidenote: _Rites on the Eve of St. Agnes_
_How to ascertain if one will marry_]
Get up at midnight on All Saints’ Eve and stand before a looking-glass,
combing your hair with one hand, and eating an apple held in the
other, and as the clock strikes twelve you will see in the glass the
face of the man you will marry looking over your left shoulder (Shr.
Wor.). I can remember a schoolfellow of mine performing this ceremony,
but in her case the prophecy proved a false one, for according to
her description, the chief feature of the man in the vision was his
moustache, and the man she ultimately married had none, for he was a
clean-shaven clergyman. Perhaps the reason why the charm failed was
because she had no apple to eat! On the Eve of St. Mark (Yks.), or of
St. Agnes, Jan. 20 (Lan.), place on the floor a lighted _pigtail_, a
small farthing candle, which must have been previously stolen, or else
the charm will not work. Then sit down in silence and watch it till
it begins to burn blue, when the future husband will appear and walk
across the room. The following is a very simple plan: Spread bread
and cheese on the table, and sit down to it alone, observing strict
silence. As the clock strikes twelve your future lover will appear and
join you at your frugal meal (Cor.). On St. Agnes’ Fast, Jan. 21, you
can procure a sight of your future husband thus: Eat nothing all day
till bedtime, then boil an egg hard, extract the yolk, fill up the
cavity with salt, and eat the egg, shell and all, then walk backwards
to bed, repeating these lines: Sweet St. Agnes, work thy fast; If ever
I be to marry man, Or man be to marry me, I hope him this night to
see (Nhb.). Some say that the same result may be effected by eating
a raw red herring, bones and all, before going to bed; or by placing
the shoes, on going to bed, at right angles to each other in the shape
of a T, saying the while: I place my shoes in form of a T, Hoping my
true love to see; Not dressed in his best array, But in the clothes
he wears every day (Nhb. Dev.). Another more elaborate ceremony is
the preparation of the _dumb-cake_ on St. Mark’s or sometimes on St.
Agnes’ Eve (n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. Nhp. Nrf.); or, as in Oxfordshire, on
Christmas Eve, under the commonplace name of _dough-cake_. The cake
must be prepared fasting, and in silence. When ready it must be placed
in a pan on the coals to bake, and at midnight the future husband will
come in, turn the cake, and go out again. In order to dream of the
future husband: on a Friday night, when you go to bed, draw your left
stocking into your right and say: This is the blessed Friday night; I
draw my left stocking into my right, To dream of the living, not of
the dead, To dream of the young man I am to wed (Shr.), then go to
sleep without uttering another word; read the verse: ‘Lay down now,
put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with
me?’ _Job_ xvii. 3, after supper, then wash up the supper dishes and
go to bed without speaking a word, placing the Bible under your pillow
with a pin stuck through the verse previously read (ne.Sc.); or place
a Bible under your pillow with a crooked sixpence over the verses:
‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or return from following
after thee....’ _Ruth_ i. 16, 17 (Lan.); take a blade-bone of mutton,
stick it full of pins, go upstairs to bed walking backwards, and place
the bone under your pillow (Yks.); get a piece of wedding-cake, carry
it upstairs backwards, tie it in your left stocking with your right
garter, place it under your pillow, and get into bed backwards, keeping
strict silence all the while (Cor.). In its simplest form of sleeping
with what Addison calls ‘an handsome slice of bride-cake ... placed
very conveniently under’ the pillow, this is perhaps the most widely
practised of all the dream-charms. Gather on a Friday at midnight nine
leaves of the she-holly, _Ilex aquifolium_, tie them with nine knots
inside a three-cornered handkerchief, and place them under the pillow
(Nhb.). A way of finding out if you will ever be married or not, is
to go into the farmyard at night and tap smartly at the door of the
fowl-house. If a hen first cackles, you will never marry, but if a
cock crows first then you will marry before the end of the coming year
(Dev.). The merry-thought of a fowl is frequently used to ascertain
which of two young people will be the first to enter the married
state. In some places the shorter piece of the broken bone denotes the
nearer marriage, elsewhere the longer piece is the coveted portion. In
Northumberland _scadded_ [scalded] peas were formerly eaten out of a
large bowl, and the person who obtained the last pea was supposed to be
the first married.
Beside these ceremonies--of which the above are a mere handful among
the hosts of examples of this popular form of divination which might be
quoted--there are the more serious and solemn practices for discovering
approaching death, such as _watching the kirk_ on St. Mark’s Eve (Dur.
Yks.). The watcher took up his post at midnight in the church porch,
and between then and one o’clock he would see pass into the church
one by one the figures of all the persons in the parish who would die
within the coming year. According to some, all the parishioners would
be seen to defile into the church, and then those destined to live
through the year would pass out thence, while the doomed would remain
behind and never be seen again. Another St. Mark’s Eve custom was the
_caff-riddling_ (Yks.), a mode of divination by means of a _riddle_
and chaff. The inquirer repaired at midnight to the barn, and leaving
the doors wide open, he there riddled the contents of his sieve, and
watched for portents. If a funeral procession passed by, or shapes of
men carrying a coffin, then the watcher would die within a year, but if
nothing appeared he was destined to live. St. Mark’s Eve was also the
night for _ash-riddling_ (n.Cy.). The ashes were riddled on the hearth,
and left there untouched when the family retired to rest, the idea
being, that if any of the inmates of the house were fated to die within
the year, the print of his or her shoe would be found impressed in the
soft ashes.
[Sidenote: _Divination to discover Theft_]
The ancient form of divination by ‘riddle and shears’ was used for the
discovery of theft. A sieve was held in a pair of shears, whilst the
names of suspected persons were uttered. At the mention of the culprit’s
name, the sieve was supposed to turn round. Similar to this are the
investigations made with ‘Bible and key’, though the details of the
performance vary slightly in different parts of the country. In
Devonshire the trial was conducted thus: the name of the suspected
person was written on a piece of paper and placed within the leaves of a
Bible, together with the front-door key, the wards of which must rest on
the eighteenth verse of Psalm 1: ‘When thou sawest a thief, then thou
consentedst with him.’ The left garters of two persons were then tied
round the Bible, and these two persons placed their right forefingers
under the bow of the key, repeating at the same time the above-mentioned
verse. If the Bible moved, the suspected person was condemned as guilty,
if it remained stationary, he was adjudged innocent.